At the Circuit House at Shahi Bag, the trial of
Mr. Gandhi and Mr. Banker commenced on Saturday noon, 18th March 1922, before
Mr. C. N. Broomsfield, I.C.S, District and Sessions Judge of Ahmedabad.
Sir J. T. Strangman with Rao Bahadur Girdharlal
conducted the prosecution, while the accused were undefended. The judge took his
seat at 12 noon, and said there was a slight mistake in the charges framed,
which he corrected. The charges were then read out by the Registrar, the offence
being in three articles 1 published in the Young India of September 29th,
December 15th, of 1921 and February 23rd, 1922. The offending articles were then
read out: first of them was ‘Tampering with Loyalty’; the second, ‘The Puzzle
and Its Solution’; and the last was ‘Shaking the Manes’.
The judge said the law required that the charge
should not only be read out, but explained. In this case, it would not be
necessary for him to say much by way of explanation. The charge in each case was
that of bringing or attempting to bring into hatred or contempt or exciting or
attempting to excite disaffection towards His Majesty’s Government, established
by law in British India. Both the accused were charged with the three offences
under Section 124A, contained in the articles read out, written by Mr. Gandhi
and printed by Mr. Banker The words ’hatred and contempt’ were words the meaning
of which was sufficiently obvious. The word ‘disaffection’ was defined under the
section, where they were told that disaffection included disloyalty and feelings
of enmity, and the word used in the section had also been interpreted by the
High Court of Bombay in a reported case as meaning political alienation or
discontent, a spirit of disloyalty to government or existing authority. The
charges having been read out, the judge called upon the accused to plead to the
charges. He asked Mr. Gandhi whether he pleaded guilty or claimed to be tried.
Mr. Gandhi: I plead guilty to all the charges. I
observe that the King’s name has been omitted from the charge, and it has been
properly omitted.
The Judge: Mr. Banker, do you plead guilty, or do
you claim to be tried?
Mr. Banker: I plead guilty.
Sir J. Strangman then wanted the judge to proceed
with the trial fully, but the Judge said he did not agree with what had been
said by the Counsel. The Judge said that from the time he knew he was going to
try the case, he had thought over the question of sentence, and he was prepared
to hear anything that the Counsel might have to say, or Mr. Gandhi wished to
say, on the sentence. He honestly did not believe that the mere recording of
evidence in the trial which Counsel had called for would make no [sic]
difference to them, one way or the other. He, therefore, proposed to accept the
pleas.
Mr. Gandhi smiled at this decision.
The Judge said nothing further remained but to
pass sentences, and before doing so, he liked to hear Sir J.T. Strangman. He was
entitled to base his general remarks on the charges against the accused and on
their pleas.
Sir J. T. Strangman: It will be difficult to do
so. I ask the court that the whole matter may be properly considered. If I
stated what has happened before the committing magistrate, then I can show that
there are many things which are material to the question of the sentence.
The first point, he said, he wanted to make out,
was that the matter which formed the subject of the present charges formed a
part of the campaign to spread disaffection openly and systematically to render
government impossible and to overthrow it. The earliest article that was put in
from Young India was dated 25th May 1921, which said that it was the duty of a
non-co-operator to create disaffection towards the Government. The counsel then
read out portion of articles written by Mr. Gandhi in the Young India.
Court said, nevertheless, it seemed to it that the
court could accept plea on the materials on which the sentence had to be based.
Sir J. Strangman said the question of sentence was
entirely for the court to decide. The court was entitled to deal in a more
general manner in regard to the question of the sentence, than the particular
matter resulting in the conviction. He asked leave to refer to articles before
the court, and what result might have been produced, if the trial had proceeded
in order to ascertain what the facts were. He was not going into any matter
which involved dispute.
The Judge said there was not the least objection.
Sir J. Strangman said he wanted to show that these
articles were not isolated. They formed part of an organized campaign, but so
far as Young India was concerned, they would show that from the year 1921. The
counsel then read out extracts from the paper, dated June 8th, on the duty of a
non-co-operator, which was to preach disaffection towards the existing
Government and preparing the country for civil disobedience. Then in the same
number, there was an article on disaffection. Then in the same number there was
an article on Disaffectin- a virtue’ or something to that effect. Then there was
an article on 28th July 1921, in which it was stated that ‘we have to destroy
the system’. Again on 30th September 1921, there was an article headed ‘Punjab
Prosecutions’, where it was stated that a non-co-operator worth his name should
preach disaffection. That was all so far as Young India was concerned. They were
earlier in date than the article, ‘Tampering with Loyalty’, and it was referred
to the Government of Bombay. Continuing, he said the accused was a man of high
educational qualifications and evidently from his writings a recognized leader.
The harm that was likely to be caused was considerable. They were the writings
of an educated man, and not the writings of an obscure man, and the court must
consider to what the results of a campaign of the nature disclosed in the
writings must inevitably lead. They had examples before them in the last few
months. He referred to the occurrences in Bombay last November and Chauri Chaura,
leading to murder and destruction of property, involving many people in misery
and misfortune. It was true that in the course of those articles they would find
non-violence was insisted upon as an item of the campaign and as an item of the
creed. But what was the use of preaching non-violence when he preached
disaffection towards government or openly instigated others to overthrow it? The
answer to that question appeared to him to come from Chauri Chaura, Madras and
Bombay. These were circumstances which he asked the court to take into account
in sentencing the accused, and it would be for the court to consider those
circumstances which involve sentences of severity.
As regards the second accused, his offence was
lesser. He did the publication and he did not write. His offence nevertheless
was a serious one. His instructions were that he was a man of means and he asked
the court to impose a substantial fine in addition to such term of imprisonment
as might be inflicted. He quoted Section 10 of The Press Act as bearing on the
question of fine. When making a fresh declaration, he said a deposit of Rs.
1,000 to Rs. 10,000 was asked in many cases.
Court: Mr. Gandhi, do you wish to make a statement
on the question of sentence?
Mr. Gandhi: I would like to make a statement.
Court: Could you give me it in writing to put it
on record?
Mr. Gandhi: I shall give it as soon as I finish
reading it.
Before reading his written statement, Mr. Gandhi
spoke a few words as introductory remarks to the whole statement. He said:
Before I read this statement, I would like to state that I entirely endorse the
learned Advocate-General’s remarks in connection with my humble self. I think
that he was entirely fair to me in all the statements that he has made, because
it is very true and I have no desire whatsoever to conceal from this court the
fact that to preach disaffection towards the existing system of government has
become almost a passion with me, and the learned Advocate-General is also
entirely in the right when he says that my preaching of disaffection did not
commence with my connection with Young India, but that it commenced much
earlier; and in the statement that I am about to read, it will be my painful
duty to admit before this court that it commenced much earlier than the period
stated by the Advocate-General. It is the most painful duty with me, but I have
to discharge that duty knowing the responsibility that rests upon my shoulders,
and I wish to endorse all the blame that the learned Advocate-General has thrown
on my shoulders in connection with the Bombay occurrences, Madras occurrences
and the Chauri Chaura occurrences. Thinking over these deeply and sleeping over
them night after night, it is impossible for me to dissociate myself from the
diabolical crimes of Chauri Chaura or the mad outrages of Bombay. He is quite
right when he says that as a man of responsibility, a man having received a fair
share of education, having had a fair share of experience of this world, I
should have known the consequences of every one of my acts. I knew that I was
playing with fire. I ran the risk, and if I was set free, I would still do the
same. I have felt it this morning that I would have failed in my duty, if I did
not say what I said here just now.
I wanted to avoid violence. Non-violence is the
first article of my faith. It is also the last article of my creed. But I had to
make my choice. I had either to submit to a system which I considered had done
an irreparable harm to my country, or incur the risk of the mad fury of my
people bursting forth, when they understood the truth from my lips. I know that
my people have sometimes gone mad. I am deeply sorry for it and I am therefore
here to submit not to a light penalty but to the highest penalty. I do not ask
for mercy. I do not plead any extenuating act. I am here, therefore, to invite
and cheerfully submit to the highest penalty that can be inflicted upon me for
what in law is a deliberate crime and what appears to me to be the highest duty
of a citizen. The only course open to you, the Judge, is, as I am just going to
say in my statement, either to resign your post, of inflict on me the severest
penalty, if you believe that the system and law you are assisting to administer
are good for the people. I do not expect that kind of conversion, but by the
time I have finished with my statement, you will perhaps have a glimpse of what
is raging within my breast to run this maddest risk which a sane man can run.
The statement was then read out.

Statement

‘I owe it perhaps to the Indian public and to the
public in England to placate which this prosecution is mainly taken up that I
should explain why from a staunch loyalist and co-operator I have become an
uncompromising disaffectionist and non-co-operator. To the court too I should
say why I plead guilty to the charge of promoting disaffection towards the
Government established by law in India.
‘My public life began in 1893 in South Africa in
troubled weather. My first contact with British authority in that country was
not of a happy character. I discovered that as a man and an Indian I had no
rights. More correctly, I discovered that I had no rights as a man, because I
was an Indian.
‘But I was not baffled. I thought that this
treatment of Indians was an excrescence upon a system that was intrinsically and
mainly good. I gave the Government my voluntary and hearty co-operation,
criticizing it freely where I felt it was faulty but never wishing its
destruction.
‘Consequently when the existence of the Empire was
threatened in 1899 by the Boer challenge, I offered my services to it, raised a
volunteer ambulance corps and served at several actions that took place for the
relief of Ladysmith. Similarly in 1906, at the time of the Zulu revolt, I raised
a stretcher-bearer party and served till the end of the “rebellion”. On both
these occasions I received medals and was even mentioned in dispatches. For my
work in South Africa I was given by Lord Hardinge a Kaisar-i-Hind gold medal.
When the war broke out in 1914 between England and Germany, I raised a volunteer
ambulance corps in London consisting of the then resident Indians in London,
chiefly students. Its work was acknowledged by the authorities to the valuable.
Lastly, in India, when a special appeal was made at the War Conference in Delhi
in 1918 by Lord Chelmsford for recruits, I struggled at the cost of my health to
raise a corps in Kheda and the response was being made when the hostilities
ceased and orders were received that no more recruits were wanted. In all these
efforts at service I was actuated by the belief that it was possible by such
services to gain a status of full equality in the Empire for my countrymen.
‘The first shock came in the shape of the Rowlatt
Act, a law designed to rob the people of all real freedom. I felt called upon to
lead an intensive agitation against it. Then followed the Punjab horrors
beginning with the massacre at Jallianwala Bagh and culminating in crawling
orders, public floggings and other indescribable humiliations. I discovered too
that the plighted word of the Prime Minister to the Mussulmans of India
regarding the integrity of Turkey and the holy places of Islam was not likely to
be fulfilled. But in spite of the forebodings and the grave warnings of friends,
at the Amritsar Congress in 1919, I fought for co-operation in working the
Montagu-Chelmsford reforms, hoping that the Prime Minister would redeem his
promise to the Indian Mussulmans, that the Punjab wound would be healed and that
the reforms, inadequate and unsatisfactory though they were, marked new era of
hope in the life of India.
‘But all that hope was shattered. The Khilafat
promise was not to be redeemed. The Punjab crime was whitewashed and most
culprits went not only unpunished but remained n service and in some cases
continued to draw pensions from the Indian revenue, and in some cases were even
rewarded. I saw too that not only did the reforms not mark a change of heart,
but they were only a method of further draining India of her wealth and of
prolonging her servitude.
‘I came reluctantly to the conclusion that the
British connection had made India more helpless than she ever was before,
politically and economically. A disarmed India has no power of resistance
against any aggressor if she wanted to engage in an armed conflict with him. So
much is this the case that some of our best men consider that India must take
generations before she can achieve Dominion status. She has become so poor that
she has little power of resisting famines. Before the British advent, India spun
and wove in her millions of cottages just the supplement she needed for adding
to her meager agricultural resources. This cottage industry, so vital for
India’s existence, has been ruined by incredibly heartless and inhuman processes
as described by English witness. Little do town dwellers know how the
semi-starved masses of India are slowly sinking to lifelessness. Little do they
know that their miserable comfort represents the brokerage they get for the work
they do for the foreign exploiter, that the profits and the brokerage are sucked
from the masses. Little do they realize that the Government established by law
in British India is carried on for this exploitation of the masses. No
sophistry, no jugglery in figures can explain away the evidence that the
skeletons in many villages present to the naked eye. I have no doubt whatsoever
that both England and the town dwellers of India will have to answer, if there
is a God above, for this crime against humanity which is perhaps unequalled in
history. The law itself in this country has been used to serve the foreign
exploiter. My unbiased examination of the Punjab Martial Law cases has led me to
believe that at least ninety-five per cent of convictions were wholly bad. My
experience of political cases in India leads me to the conclusion that in nine
out of ten the condemned men were totally innocent. Their crime consisted in the
love of their country. In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred justice has been
denied to Indians as against Europeans in the courts of India. This is not an
exaggerated picture. It is the experience of almost every Indian who has had
anything to do with such cases. In my opinion, the administration of the law is
thus prostituted consciously or unconsciously for the benefit of the exploiter.
‘The greatest misfortune is that Englishmen and
their Indian associates in the administration of the country do not know that
they are engaged in the crime I have attempted to describe. I am satisfied that
many Englishmen and Indian officials honestly believe that they are
administering one of the best system devised in the world and that India is
making steady though slow progress. They do not know that a subtle but effective
system of terrorism and an organized display of force on the one hand, and the
deprivation of all powers of retaliation of self-defence on the other, have
emasculated the people and induced in them the habit of simulation. This awful
habit has added to the ignorance and the self-deception of the administrators.
Section 124A under which I am happily charged is perhaps the prince among the
political sections of the Indian Penal Code designed to suppress the liberty of
the citizen. Affection cannot be manufactured or regulated by law. If one has no
affection for a person or system, one should be free to give the fullest
expression of his disaffection, so long as he does not contemplate, promote or
incite to violence. But the section under which Mr. Banker and I are charged is
one under which mere promotion of disaffection is a crime. I have studied some
of the cases tried under it, and I know that some of the most loved of India’s
patriots have been convicted under it. I consider it a privilege, therefore, to
be charged under that section. I have endeavoured to give in their briefest
outline the reasons for my disaffection. I have no personal ill-will against any
single administrator, much less can I have any disaffection towards the King’s
person. But I hold it to be a virtue to be disaffected towards a government
which in its totality has done more harm to India than any previous system.
India is less manly under the British rule than she ever was before. Holding
such a belief, I consider it to be a sin to have affection for the system. And
it has been a precious privilege for me to be able to write what I have in the
various articles, tendered in evidence against me.
‘In fact, I believe that I have rendered a service
to India and England by showing in non-co-operation the way out of the unnatural
state in which both are living. In my humble opinion, non-co-operation with evil
is as much a duty as is co-operation with good. But in the past,
non-co-operation has been deliberately expressed in the violence to the evil
doer. I am endeavouring to show to my countrymen that violent non-co-operation
only multiplied evil and that as evil can only be sustained by violence,
withdrawal of support of evil requires complete abstention from violence.
Non-violence implies voluntary submission to the penalty for non-co-operation
with evil. I am here, therefore, to invite and submit cheerfully to the highest
penalty that can be inflicted upon me for what in law is a deliberate crime and
what appears to me to be the highest duty of a citizen. The only course open to
you, the Judge, is either to resign your post and thus dissociate yourself from
evil, if you feel that the law you are called upon to administer is an evil and
that in reality I am innocent; or to inflict on me the severest penalty if you
believe that the system and the law you are assisting to administer are good for
the people of this country and that my activity is therefore injurious to the
public weal.’
Mr. Banker: I only want to say that I had the
privilege of printing these articles and I plead guilty to the charge. I have
got nothing to say as regards the sentence.

The Judgment

The following is the full text of the judgment:
Mr. Gandhi, you have made my task easy in one way
by pleading guilty to the charge. Nevertheless, what remains, namely, the
determination of a just sentence, is perhaps as difficult a proposition as a
judge in this country could have to face. The law is no respecter of persons.
Nevertheless, it will be impossible to ignore the fact that you are in a
different category from any person I have ever tried or am likely to have to
try. It would be impossible to ignore the fact that, in the eyes of the millions
of your countrymen, you are a great patriot and a great leader. Even those who
differ from you in politics look upon you as a man of high ideals and of noble
and of even saintly life. I have to deal with you in one character only. It is
not my duty and I do not presume to judge or criticize you in any other
character. It is my duty to judge you as a man subject to the law, who by his
own admission has broken the law and committed what to an ordinary man must
appear to be grave offence against the State. I do not forget that you have
consistently preached against violence and that you have on many occasions, as I
am willing to believe, done much to prevent violence. But having regard to the
nature of your political teaching and the nature of many of those to whom it was
addressed, how you could have continued to believe that violence would not be
the inevitable consequence, it passes my capacity to understand.
There are probably few people in India who do not
sincerely regret that you should have made it impossible for any government to
leave you at liberty. But it is so. I am trying to balance what is due to you
against what appears to me to be necessary in the interest of the public, and I
propose in passing sentence to follow the precedent of a case in many respects
similar to this case that was decided some twelve years ago, I mean the case
against Bal Gangadhar Tilak under the same section. The sentence that was passed
upon him as it finally stood was a sentence of simple imprisonment for six
years. You will not consider it unreasonable, I think, that you should be
classed with Mr. Tilak, i.e. a sentence of two years’ simple imprisonment on
each count of the charge; six years in all, which I feel it my duty to pass upon
you, and I should like to say in doing so that, if the course of events in India
should make it possible for the Government to reduce the period and release you,
no one will be better pleased than I.
The Judge to Mr. Banker: I assume you have been to
a large extent under the influence of your chief. The sentence that I propose to
pass upon you is simple imprisonment for six months on each of the first two
counts, that is to say, simple imprisonment for one year and a fine of a
thousand rupees on the third count, with six months’ simple imprisonment in
default.

Mr. Gandhi on the Judgment

Mr. Gandhi said: I would say one word. Since you
have done me the honour of recalling the trial of the late Lokmanya Bal
Gangadhar Tilka, I just want to say that I consider it to be the proudest
privilege and honour to be associated with his name. So far as the sentence
itself is concerned, I certainly consider that it is as light as any judge would
inflict on me, and so far as the whole proceedings are concerned, I must say
that I could not have expected greater courtesy.
Then the friends of Mr. Gandhi crowded round him
as the Judge left the court, and fell at his feet. There was much sobbing on the
part of both men and women. But all the while, Mr. Gandhi was smiling and cool
and giving encouragement to everybody who came to him. Mr. Banker also was
smiling and taking this in a light-hearted way. After all his friends had taken
leave of him, Mr. Gandhi was taken out of the court to the Sabarmati Jail.

A Letter to Mahatma Gandhi from Prison

Near Etawa,
En route to Agra
Dated 10th morning.

I feel like one who has long been pent up in a
dark and ill-ventilated cell and who all at once finds himself inhaling deep
draughts of the fresh air of heaven. You can easily imagine what longing I must
have had to write to you, I who was in the habit of writing to you almost daily
and of thus easing the many troubles of my mind. We are permitted to write one
letter in a fortnight; the letter again must be in English and must be forwarded
through the Superintendent. How, then, could I hope to tell you everything that
was happening behind the prison walls? But yesternight we were set free, at
least till we reached Agra. And this morning we are on our way thereto.
Yesternight, thirty-nine of us started from Naini
in a prison van comprising four barred compartments, each being three cubits
long and five broad. The bars were apparently not considered to be an adequate
safeguard; for the prison van has no doors and no windows. Only there are
crooked holes, one inch broad by the side of the carriage for the passage of
air. I asked the Sergeant who escorts us whether there was any intention of
repeating the Moplah tragedy. The poor fellow naively replied that there was no
fear, as it was winter and that it would have been intolerable, had it been
summer. Besides the four prisoners’ compartments, there was a fifth which was
like ordinary third class and was meant for our friends, the guard. Should they
not have sufficient light and air to be able to keep us in a suffocated
condition?
Devdas and Durga (Mrs. Desai) were at Allahabad
Station to see us. They could not have a view of our faces, but they stood
outside, near the place where I was, and we could have a hearty talk. From this
Prison van I could inform Devdas of the many horrors about which I had been
unable to tell him anything in the jail; for the police who escort us do not act
as jailers. So some of the things in this letter will have already appeared in
Devdas’ Independent before this reaches you.
We had had hardly a wink of sleep from about one
or two o’clock, when at four we were roused at Cawnpore. The Sergeant said,
’Desi, Govind and Krishnakant Malaviya, Shahsaheb, and two others, follow me. We
shall seat you elsewhere, so that there might be more room here.’ I could not
understand how this selection was made, but it looked like segregation, and so I
said that any seven of us would come, but not the seven that were named. The
Sergeant replied that only those whom he named must come as he did not know the
rest and therefore could not take the risk of seating any of them in an ordinary
compartment. As ‘political’ prisoners, some of us had our own clothes on; with
the exception of these three or four, the rest were in jail dress and in irons,
so that our shame (even as it was) was boundless. To it was now added the insult
of being considered more ‘trustworthy’ than the rest. I thought the three out of
the seven would be ordinary prisoners, and that with the aid of light, I would
have an opportunity of writing to you, an opportunity not lightly to be allowed
to slip as I could not hope to have it anywhere else; and so we came out. I am
writing this in an ordinary third-class compartment. Seven policemen are
mounting guard over us seven!
But I must cut this story short, as there is
little time and much to write. How can I give you an idea of the perplexities we
have suffered on account of your injunction that we should obey all orders in
jail? Every moment we are troubled by doubts as to what to obey and what not to
obey, as always the sun sets on novel experiences and on various oppressions. So
I am not all certain as to the propriety of my conduct on every occasion when I
have been anxious to obey.
I am not going to detail here all the experiences
in jai. That would take many letters like this, and this is hardly the time for
it. I am going to give such select information as I think ought to be placed
before the public.
I was take to Naini Jail on the 24th and was at
once taken in the presence of the Superintendent, who said angrily, ‘Look here,
you may be a non-co-operator or anything you please, but here you are a prisoner
like all the others and will be treated accordingly. You will tire of your life
out here, but I can’t help it. We will not trouble you so long as you so long as
you do not trouble us.’
This homily over, I was soon taken to my own cell.
I had previously resolved that I should accept everything cheerfully including
jail dress and irons. So I put on jail dress as soon as it was given to me.
Fifteen members of the Provincial Committee had arrived here a weak before me,
and their cell was adjoining mine. I got the news, after I had changed my dress,
that one of them had refused to put on jail dress and had consequently received
a flogging. The jail authorities were somewhat surprised to find that I had
accepted the change in dress without demur. I was given a rough woollen coat,
worn almost threadbare by long use, a shirt worn out by some prisoner of twice
my size and emitting horrible stink, an equally dirty pair of shorts and
loincloth, along with two blankets as bedding. In a few minutes I felt an
itching sensation, and an inspection at one or two places resulted in the find
of a pretty big louse. It was difficult to say whether the vermin lived in the
blanket or the shirt, but as there was fairly bitter cold, I had to choose
between lice and offensive smell, I elected against the smell, placed the coat
as a pillow, put away the shirt, and decided to pass the night under the sole
protection of the blanket. I had thought that as I was dead tired, I would sleep
soundly. But the lice in the blanket never ceased troubling me. My friends in
the adjoining cell gave me from their place an account of the misbehavior of the
jailer and the Superintendent. One of them was flogged for the grave offence of
not standing up and pushing his hand out through the bars, when the jailer
arrived! Another suffered the same punishment for refusing to wear dirty
clothes! Add to the stings of lice, the noisy cries, rending the heavens, with
which prisoners were counted every quarter of an hour from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. and
you can understand that I got hardly any sleep. But I knew that sheer physical
necessity would induce sleep on the following days, no matter if I was unable to
sleep on the first.
I took no food in the evening, as I did not feel
inclined. I was given a large iron bowl for eating and drinking. In spite of all
the scrubbing I could give it, I found in the morning that the water in it had
turned blood-red with rust. We were taken out thrice in the day for drinking
water and for natural purposes. There was a paved reservoir from which all of us
were to have our water by putting our bowls into it. Filtering the water was out
of the question, as we were not provided with any extra piece of cloth.
(At this point the Sergeant sees me writing and
gives me notice that I should not pass any of my writing to my friends. So I
must be brief.)
For bathing purposes, there was a long paved
channel joining with the reservoir mentioned above. We were all to sit in it and
bathe. As for food, we were given dalia (a porridge of pounded wheat) in the
morning, wheat bread and dal at noon, and the same bread and vegetable in the
evening. What shall I say as to how I liked this appetizing menu? The other
prisoners were taking it all right, and so I can hardly describe it as falling
within your definition of food unfit for human consumption.
But let me now come to other matters. There is a
rule that a newly arrived prisoner is only confined and not given any work for
first ten days of his term. So my friends of the Provincial Committee and
myself, having no work, were given books which we read, heard the bitter
language of the jailer and the Superintendent in the mornings and saw prisoners
striking and abusing one another. The second day, I requested the Superintendent
to give us spinning wheels or let us have them from our homes. He replied that
wheels were given to women and that the Government who spent ten rupees on each
prisoner had somehow to manage to raise a like amount out of his labour and that
therefore grinding was given to him. I said that, if the Government had common
sense, they could earn 500 rupees out of our work. He angrily asked if he was to
get us to write articles.
In answer to my companions, the Superintendent
said, ‘Owing to you disloyal people having arrived, I could not get my leave for
ten days sanctioned. We have to suffer much on account of you. You must behave
properly. Do not think I am alone. I have fifty millions of people behind me
(referring to the population of England).’
This went on for a few days. The ten days’ period
of the Provincial Committee people was soon over, and they were made to wear an
iron neckring and a wooden tablet, showing the section against which they had
offended and the term of the sentence of imprisonment. They already had irons on
their feet. The same day they lost their lousy clothes and got new ones. My
clothes were still the same, but I had remained bare-bodied for two days, and
washed them thoroughly with earth. Thus the stink had disappeared and my friends
had combined for one or two days to pick out the lice from my blankets in the
sunshine.
When the friends left, I felt somewhat lonely and
so gradually grew very friendly with the other prisoners, some of them dacoits.
An old man with a term of seven years’ imprisonment came near my cell and sat
near the door. I read the Ramayana to him and he expounded it. He was a man of
much common sense and knowledge. He had the Ramayana by heart. Then we recited
bhajans and many prisoners began to sit near my cell. Prisoners here are finely
divided into two classes, national and Government prisoners, i.e. ordinary
prisoners and political. The political are gratefully admired and served by the
others.
While my new friendships were thus flourishing, I
had heard that the provincial friends had been given hard labour. Eleven had to
grind fifteen seers of corn every day, and the deputy jailer had ordered the
convict warder to harass them in all possible ways, in order that they might
weaken and apologize. One or two of these poor men fell ill in two days. All had
warts on their palms, but had in three or four days progressed up to about nine
seers, when I received the news that the Government had directed that I should
be treated as political prisoner. I was sorry for this. While my friends were
given hard labour, I was denied the privilege of spiritual elevation through
physical suffering. My own clothes in which I had arrived in jail and in which I
was furbished up for the day when Devdas and Durga were to see me in order that
she might not take fright at the convict’s dress, were returned to me, but the
‘Gandhi cap’ was withheld. I asked the Superintendent what it was. He could not
explain anything beyond saying that it was like the one I wore and that I would
not be allowed to wear it. I might change the shape, he said, or wear a fez like
Sherwani’s. I laughed and said that I would do neither. ‘Then you must go
bareheaded,’ he said. I agreed. I had thought of refusing to take the other
ordinary clothes, but then I remembered your ‘Model Prisoner’ and quietly
submitted.
I passed my first day as political prisoner in
great trouble. But the next day I was at ease, as I realized that even so there
was an opportunity of suffering. Some of my friends described their personal
experience. There is a young man, named Kailasnath, still in his teens, the son
of a well-known pleader of Cawnpore, and a political prisoner. Being religiously
minded, he takes food after bath, worship, and the application of sandal paint,
etc., to the forehead. The jailer had admitted sandal and the other things for
him, but when one day he saw the sandal mark, he ordered Kailasnath to rub it
out. The young man obeyed but refused to take food. And so the jailer arrived on
the scene and threatened punishment, but Kailsnath persisted in his refusal all
the same. For this, he received filthy abuse, was severely flogged with a wooden
cudgel and kicked with boots. His utensils were dashed to the ground. The hero
responsible for this is Hamilton, an Englishman who has been promoted to
jailership for his services during the war. This incident got into the
newspapers, though not in detail, and there was an inquiry. The
Inspector-General visited the prison and told Kailasnath that he must obey all
orders. Apparently he took the jailer also to task, as the latter came to
Kailasnath and abused the Inspector-General before him!
On hearing this, I could see that life even as a
political prisoner need not be uneventful. Meanwhile the attitude of the jailer
and the Superintendent towards me had changed and I had friendly conversations
with them about non-co-operation and other topics. I did not quite relish this
development, as I was afraid that these officers might be trying to win me over
as prelude to oppressing the rest.
The same evening I heard successive cries of
‘Gandhijiki Jai’. In the morning, I had read your observations in Young India
and wished I could communicate them to the friends who had been given hard
labour. Here was no means of doing so. The cry started from one block and
received a response from other blocks, one after another. To the Superintendent
and the jailer it looked like mutiny. They ran up. One of those fifteen friends
was seized and the warder fell upon him like a wolf. The poor man was greeted
with foul abuse and flogged with lathis along with an ironical order to repeat
‘Gandhijiki Jai’. After he had received ten blows of a lathi, one inch and a
half in diameter, his magnificent frame tottered to the ground and then he was
beaten with fists, etc.
The friend who thus suffered is Lakshminarayana
Sharma, a pious and inoffensive young man of twenty-two, who used to be
secretary, Aligarh Congress Committee. The other prisoners could not bear the
sight of this suffering, and offered to retaliate upon the warder. But
Lakshminarayana prevented them all and said it was their duty to suffer. The
others, however, were greatly enraged and continued the cries of ‘Gandhijiki
Jai’ for which about fifty or sixty of them were cruelly flogged. As if this
were not enough, the next morning all the prisoners were taken outside,
including the Provincial Committee men, and in the presence of all of them, two
prisoners who were suspects had their hands fastened with a stick and then
caned. The caning was so severe that the cries of the sufferers could be heard
in my cell at a distance of two or three furlongs. When a prisoner swooned after
some blows, he was given rest; and as he revived, the caning was continued. In
this way, two of them received twenty-three cuts. It is worthy of remark that at
each cut the sufferer and his fellow prisoners sent up a joint cry of
‘Gandhijiki Jai’ in spite of the jailer and the Superintendent, and these cries
stopped only when the authorities were tired of inflicting any more punishment.
After this, three or four were flogged with sticks and fists. One of them
suffered so severely that there was an involuntary discharge of excreta and
urine. Two or three are in hospital. I was told that prisoners had died in this
jail before, in consequence of such oppression.
Having performed his ‘dirty job’ (Dyer’s phrase)
in this way, the jailer came to see me. I asked him for an explanation of the
trouble. He replied that there might have been a big mutiny and that severe
punishment was necessary to prevent it. I told him that, be that as it might, I
would fast and pray for the day. He asked me why. I said I would pray not only
for my brethren who were no doubt in error, but for those who despitefully used
them. The jailer asked me what was the value of prayer. The talk then turned
upon the Bible. I explained to him that Jesus and the Bible were not the sole
property of Christians like himself, but the joint estate of humanity at large.
He then appeared to melt somewhat. I said how good it would be, if I was
permitted to read to the prisoners Mr. Gandhi’s observations pertinent to their
case, and I offered to meet all of them and talk to them about our duty. But
this was not at all acceptable to the jailer. Only last evening, he was saying
to the prisoners, ‘There is no victory to Gandhi here, the victory is to
Government. So you must cry victory to Government.’ He was however abashed a
little, said it was no use crying over spilt milk and then left me.
After the jailer came the Superintendent. He also
tried to tease me, saying ironically how obedient my non-co-operator friends
were. I was quiet and only said that he at least was amused by the whole affair.
Then he told me I did not know the utility of punishment. I replied I did not
care to, as there was a world of difference between his mentality and mine, and
that he on his part had no appreciation of our methods. He then expatiated upon
the value of ‘force’ and said, ‘You Indians are unpractical visionaries. We are
practical. You only talk big.’ I was listening quietly and contented myself with
asking whether it was I or he that was talking big. He said nothing more and
left me. Meanwhile I had obtained permission to see Lakshminarayana, that friend
who had been so cruelly dealt with. I saw him. He showed me terrible marks of
the flogging upon his body. I told him we were forbidden to cry ‘Gandhijiki Jai’
and that I read about it in the papers only the other day. On hearing this the
young man burst into tears and said at once he must then tell the Superintendent
that he had done wrong. Thus he evidenced the incomparable tenderness of his
soul. But what does the enemy know or care about our tenderness? So that we can
only learn to send forth like sandalwood greater fragrance, the more roughly we
are handled. I assure you, after the experiences that I have had, that our
people are mastering this lesson in some miraculous method.
But now I must close. There is much to say, but I
shall rest content if this much reaches you by post for the present. We are not
permitted to post letters, but how long should these facts be kept from the
public? It is also a question to be considered how far we should obey the order
not to give out anything.
I have had no sleep last night, am thoroughly
fatigued and must seize an early opportunity of posting this. I will write in
English if possible, but perhaps there may be no time.
We are all on our way to Agra, thirty-nine in all,
including members of the Provincial Committee and some Allahabad volunteers.
Since he received the orders of removal, the Superintendent was kindness itself
to us. He must have haved a sigh of relief at our departure as of some great
trouble. On the last day he said: ‘You are an awful nuisance. I should get an
allowance of Rs. 50 for each one of you.’ We are being removed, for fear that we
might influence the prison population and bring them to a knowledge of their
slavery and ignorance.

1. The complaint in respect of the earlier article, ‘Disaffection, a Virtue’ seems to have been dropped
subsequently after inquiry by the magistrate.